Life Retreat is about many things: health, fitness, fashion, well-being, and now, food! Every Thursday we plan to bring you a “Recipe of the Week”, sourced from the many fantastically talented food bloggers and chefs in South Africa. Some of our favourite food blogs will be included in this weekly feature, as well as up and coming foodies whose recipes catch our eyes! This week, we turn to Megan Deane for one of her great recipes!

Whenever I see chicken or pork roulades in magazines, they always look so neatly made and as if a lot of time and effort went into making them. I’m not very good with fiddly food; so I knew my patience was going to wear thin had this pork roulade experiment become complicated.

I do believe though, when you step into the kitchen, you need to be in the right head space. There are so many things that can go wrong. Whenever I’m in a bad mood and busy in the kitchen I always seem to burn my fingers as I forget to use a dish clothe to handle a hot dish, spill oil over my hands, or almost chop my fingers off when trying to slice and dice.

You would think being in the kitchen I would automatically be happy, but there are those few occasions when I’m not. The only reason for this is because I am hungry. Simply put, my hunger pangs go past the ‘easy going stage’ and escalate to a ‘if you don’t feed me now I will bite your head off’ stage. When I reach this stage my cooking does tend to suffer, and it doesn’t help I’m not very patient; there are moments when a minute microwave session gets too drawn out for me. I know you are struggling to picture this, innocent dear Megan, snappy and angry… Never… Well, I have big “food-swings”, and I admit, it ain’t pretty.

Luckily, when I started experimenting with this pork fillet, my appetite was in check and my demeanour didn’t resemble that of a hyena. However, I think even if you’re looking for something easy to do on a Sunday afternoon, this pork roulade is the way to go. The only challenge is cutting the meat right; it helps having a super sharp knife. Don’t let the posh nosh look fool you, but this recipe is really easy and requires little fussing over once assembled.

Ingredients:

500g Pork fillet

1 Punnet button mushrooms, finely diced

1 tsp Crushed garlic

1 Red Onion, finely chopped

1 Cup Cheddar cheese, grated

1 -2 tsp Thyme, chopped

1 Cube Chicken stock

½ Cup dry white wine

Salt & Pepper

Oil for frying

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

In a pot, fry up the onion until soft, add the mushrooms and only then add the garlic and thyme, salt and pepper.

Once the onion, and mushrooms are softer, take off the heat and set aside.

Slice the pork fillet lengthways. Start from the bottom; slice through the meat, before reaching the other end, turn the meat so it becomes a ‘never-ending slicing action’. Unravel the meat so it lies flat on the countertop. Cover with cling wrap and hammer gently with a rolling pin or meat mallet.

Once the pork is thin and flat, take the cling wrap off. Season the pork fillet with some salt and pepper.

Place the onion, mushroom and garlic mixture over the entire surface of the flat pork. Remember to leave a bit of the mixture to add as a topping.

Gently start rolling the pork back into its original shape.

To secure the meat in place you can tie string around it, or you can gently place it in a pan and handle with care.

Once in the pan add the chicken stock and wine, to ensure the meat does not dry out.

Place in the preheated oven for about 30 – 45 minutes; or until cooked through. Turn the meat halfway through the cooking time.

Take out and allow to sit for 5 minutes and then serve.

Top the fillet with the rest of the onion, mushroom, garlic and thyme mixture.